A Radical Approach to Statistics

I am excited to announce that I have finally completed the first draft of a statistics textbook which I have been working on for 20 years or so. This text is the FIRST proof-of-concept of the Ghazali Project. Whereas most people believe that the solution to ignorance and poverty of the Ummah lies in spreading Western education - more universities, research centers, Ph. D.s books etc - the Ghazali project is based on the idea that the Western education now widespread over the Islamic world is the SOURCE of our current problems. While it provides essential skills, it also imparts a Eurocentric worldview and is built on toxic moral foundations. The only solution is to create an alternative that imparts the same skills while being built on Islamic moral foundations, and framed within the perspective of an Islamic worldview. This must be done piece by piece and course by course. The first such piece is my new ELEMENTARY statistics textbook - it is addressed to undergraduates taking statistics for the first time. I have tried very hard to keep the complexity to a MINIMUM level. However, I fear that the introductory chapters which explain and motivate the approach may still be too difficult for undergrads, while being too simple for philosophers and intellectuals. The linked post provides a brief introduction to the text, and also provides links to an editable/commentable complete draft of the textbook. I would very much appreciate getting comments on the draft from interested readers, as I am now going to be polishing and revising it for publication. Advice on where to publish and how to publicize would also be welcome.

This new textbook on elementary statistics rejects the century-long developments based on the approach created by Sir Ronald Fisher in the early 20th Century. It advocates rebuilding the discipline on new foundations. In particular, statistics should be treated as a modern branch of rhetoric: the art of persuasion using data. The video/blog post below provides an introduction to the ideas that went into creating this new approach. I would request especially teachers of introductory statistics in the Islamic world to go through this course and provide me with feedback directly or on the website.

The Ghazali Project is based on the idea that a Western education imparts a Eurocentric worldview and toxic moral ideas to all students. But it also imparts essential skills for the modern world. This makes it essential to develop alternatives that impart the necessary skills but are built on Islamic moral foundations, and framed within an Islamic worldview. Understanding why a secular modern education causes damage to Muslim youth requires a study of European history of thought, very briefly sketched below.

Radical Transition in European Epistemology

1. Over a century of wars between Christian factions led to the necessity to build political science on secular foundations.
2. This first step eventually led to the creation of secular modernity, built on “objective” knowledge, derived purely from reasons and observations, without any moral inputs.
3. The idea of “objective knowledge” is an illusion. ALL useful human knowledge is necessarily built on moral foundations.
4. Knowledge created by European intellectuals over the past few centuries pretends to be objective and rational, but is built on concealed toxic moral foundations

The Ghazali Project

1. Standard Diagnosis of Ills of the Muslim Ummah: We have fallen far behind the West in the acquisition of knowledge, commanded by God.
2. Standard Solution: Acquire Western knowledge, and build schools & universities.
3. Ghazali Diagnosis: The Western education being provided all over the globe is the SOURCE of the disease, because it is built on toxic moral foundations. Nonetheless, it also imparts skills essential for today,
4. Ghazali Solution: Build an Islam alternative to Western education which provides the required skills, but builds them on Islamic moral foundations.

Proof-of-Concept:?A Statistics Textbook

1. Real Statistics: A Radical Approach – Rebuilds discipline of statistics on Islamic epistemological and moral foundations.
2. Rejects conventional statistics – a century of developments building on foundations created by Sir Ronald Fisher in the early 20th Century
3. The preface to the textbook, outlined below, describes some of the key ideas which went into the development of this approach

Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation & Marginalization of Morality

This book provides confirmation and evidence for the Ghazali Diagnosis: Western education is the source of the disease. Julie Reuben’s book explains a radical transformation in education that occurred in the early 20th Century. Knowledge was thought of as a whole – all components connected by a common vision of purpose and meaning of human lives given by God. Character building, and social and civic responsibilities were central functions of education.

The emergence of Logical Positivism in the early 20th Century changed the meaning of “knowledge” and thereby also, the goal of education.

1. LP is a (failed) theory of knowledge.
2. According to LP, all (valid) knowledge is based on observations and logic
3. Also, science is based purely on observations and logic (FACTS)
4. Morality and Religion cannot be derived from observations and logic. Therefore, these are meaningless noises, not knowledge (VALUES)
5. Social Sciences were RE-FORMULATED in the early 20th Century by LP
6. Founders of Statistics and Probability were deeply influenced by this philosophy.

Recreation of Human Sciences in 20th Century

1. The UNOBSERVABLES were removed from “scientific” theories
2. In Economics – satisfaction felt from consumption was replaced by observable choices – removing the possibility of differentiating between needs and wants.
3. In statistics, real-world causal mechanisms were removed from inferential apparatus and replaced by observable correlations.
4. In probability, what might have occurred was replaced by long-run frequency of occurrence, creating an incoherent theory of probability, which continues to be taught to confused students around the world.

Remedy is possible

1. Real Statistics is based on rejecting logical positivist ideas.
2. The discovery of unobservable real-world mechanisms is the goal of statistics.
3. Numbers or Observations do not matter for themselves, but only as clues to hidden real-world structures.
4. We cannot make arbitrary assumptions about imaginary parent populations from which the data is a random sample – the starting point of conventional statistical analysis.

Methodology of Real Statistics

1. Hidden Structures of Reality give rise to observables – both qualitative and quantitive. Both types of information are used to reconstruct – intuitively – these hidden structures.
2. One of these hidden structures – never observable – is CAUSALITY.
3. The goal of real statistics is to guess the hidden real structures.

Real Methodology can be graphically depicted as follows:

Methodology of Conventional Statistics

1. In conventional statistics, the goal is no longer to discover hidden real-world structures.
2. Logical positivism says that science is NOT concerned with hidden unobservables (like God).
3. Instead, we create an IMAGINARY class of parent populations from which the observed data COULD HAVE been chosen as a random sample.
4. GOAL of statistical inference is then to learn about more about this IMAGINARY class of parent populations

Nominal Methodology tells us to ignore the unobservable hidden structures of the real world, as these are not relevant to scientific methodology.

More information and links to an editable/commentable draft of the textbook are available from bit.ly/PrefRSRA